i will be quite upset if they spend the few precious remaining rune slots on some kind of formless staff melee abilities.
Some of my favorite times (before SoD) have been simply facetanking people as they rot to swarm and dots, and they’ve attacked you because “oh it’s just a druid out of form” but guess what, HoTs put work in. There will also be travel form later.
TBC dreamstate was more balance than resto and had no spec forms but was insane in 1v1 against most classes because of the extra pressure while having endless mp5.
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Whoa. I never played Druid in TBC. That sounds fun =).
A resto in Wrath can still run Swarm but you have to give up Wild Growth.
A resto (11 points) in SoD can have both. 
I’ve been doing a similar build / play style. Except I don’t see any reason to run with any STR at all.
With the Wild Growth rune, Omen of Clarity essentially reads, “Your melee attacks have a chance to grant you 268 mana”. Or “melee attacks have a chance to heal you and your entire party for 378 over 6 seconds”. That’s nice.
Assuming Omen of Clarity procs twice per minute (according to WoWHead comments) that’s 500+ mana per minute, or 44 mana per 5.
Compare that to the MP5 talent in resto, which, with around 120 spirit, is giving 5 or so mana per 5.
So Omen is good just because a free Wild Growth at 268 mana is really good.
As an added bonus, if you’re only using Wild Growth during a boss fight to heal, an Omen proc will give you 7 or more seconds of free mana regen. With highish spirit, this translates into 1.5+ free Wild Growths.
(I’ve been healing BFD without issue, I don’t go nuts trying to fish for Omen procs but it’s viable on some bosses like the hydra, and Ashenvale bosses as well.)
(Oh and also, SotF is only for PvP, in PvE it’s free Wrath.)
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Thanks for the insights Daggies. Great breakdown. Glad to hear other people are playing with the Omen mechanic in PVE. That free Wild Growth is so juicy.
This is a cool, niche build for lvl 25, for sure. But this has no practical applications in PvP outside of this phase.
This was how I leveled my druid, except I used Sunfire and starsurge. Open with wrath until they’re close, and then use instant casts and melee to keep the mob tagged while moving to the next one. This plus thorns and a rejuv kept me moving and killing constantly. It was fun and faster than standing around spamming wrath especially with pushback.
I wouldn’t use this in a dungeon or raid, though. The highest DPS staff you’ll get is the epic staff with 25 DPS, and wrath spam is like 50 DPS.
The wrath spam will lower in DPS when you have to cast a heal, but the 25 DPS melee attacking also gets paused when casting even instant spells as you noted which makes it a moot point.
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That is just not remotely true lmao
There he goes again lmfao
Sunfire increases DPS. I found wild growth to be stronger in pvp scenarios. Your melee attacks aren’t paused if you line up spells with your swings. IE the 3 second swing timer on Staff of Westfall allows you to alternate between Starsurge and Wild Growth (each on a 6 second CD) and not miss a swing. Ideally you have a 1.5s swing staff lol (doesnt exist) so you never miss a global. Definitely a janky way to play but I’m having a ton of fun with it.
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Hmm? What’s up?
If you think a druid is going to be melee swinging - out of form - on anything outside of P1, you are just completely lost.
The issue is of course you MUST pay very close attention to your swing timer if you plan on it doing anything of worth since Druid instant casts aren’t like Paladin/Shaman. The other side of it is you don’t really have a lot propping up your damage from melee swings and nothing a Druid uses tends to buff everything all at once.
As a pseudo-Tank
Chances are such a build would just end up being a Panzerkin build that relies heavily on Moonfire, Sunfire, Starsurge, and Insect Swarm, while getting the enhanced Armor from Moonkin on top of SotF Rune to remain uncrittable. You’d only use Starfire/Wrath on the pull since casting kills your avoidance and denies your autos.
This can certainly work in a lower DPS setting since you’ll be plenty healthy enough with Boomkin armor, SotF uncrittableness, and SotF damage reduction, but threat is going to be an issue. Starsurge hits plenty hard, and will only hit harder once you have tons of SP, Crit, and talents like Vengeance and Moonfury, and the DoTs aren’t any kind of slouch, but then you just have a boring swing timer and SS to hit while you let DoTs do their thing.
In TBC, Moonkin had mana-restore on melee swings (which was later turned into mana restore on critical spell hits). In Wrath, Druids could get Owlkin Frenzy which would only proc on taking damage, allowing uninterrupted spell casting, spell haste, and mana regen. These could be added and/or tuned up in the form of new Runes that made Moonkin autos deal bonus damage or scale with SP or the like.
As a DPS-healer
You’re really better off just being a Moonglow Resto Druid using low ranks of Healing Touch like a Flash of Light Paladin when you have to heal, otherwise you’re just spamming Wrath all day for Fury of Stormrage and Nature’s Swiftness procs, using Wild Growth on any fights you have to worry about spot healing a group, otherwise Sunfire.
So I don’t think this will be very strong or viable at the moment for anything outside of solo play, and even then its probably just better to get Fury of Stormrage for the freebie Wrath spam rather than try to tank it up with Survival of the Fittest. Future runes could change that, and there are some bits and bobs from TBC/Wrath that could make it a much more interesting reality.
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It’s not about that, it’s just more about you being insufferable as always.
Besides, Feral uses AA out of form all the time since getting out of cat form keeps the swing timer to 1 second… allows you to dump your energy into an auto attack out of form before a mage blinks. At 60 it was common to crit well over 1k rather than a weak 200 from cat, and due to ice armor you need to leave form to go Travel form anyways.
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How is what I said “insufferable”?
I said it has no practical pvp applications outside of P1. That is all I said.
Also, this concept is quite clearly not about randomly melee weaving a single attack at specific points in time.
Not to piss off the naysayers any more, but do you guys know if Omen can proc off of Windfury or Wild Strikes? Thanks for dropping the TBC/Wrath knowledge Susurrus.
PS I didn’t mean to imply this play style as BIS. I tagged it as off-meta and fun. Wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes unviable in later phases. My guild is clearing BFD with no deaths in under 30 min so why not try something different.
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For sure, homie. Like I said, build sounds fun. I enjoy playing around Omen.
Play however you like!
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I lurk, and you’re in every post spreading negativity about any spec that is not your glass cannon balance spec.
Read your last post, you’ve back-peddled again.
“If you think a druid is going to be melee swinging - out of form - on anything outside of P1, you are just completely lost.”
We need Tirel in here to troll you for another 16 hours.
That isn’t a back-peddle, my dude. Druid is not going to be consistently auto attacking targets, out of form, in PvP to great effect outside of P1. That is just the truth.
Having said that, he can do whatever he likes. Build seems like a fun, niche level 25 build.
I think glass cannon balance builds are also boring, so not sure what youre talking about. I prefer utility over everything.
Rolls eyes